Senomyx: announces issuance of a new U.S. patent

San Diego / CA. (prn) Senomyx Inc., a company using proprietary technologies to discover and develop novel flavour ingredients for the packaged food and beverage industry, announced the issuance by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of U.S. Patent No. 7.241.880, «T1R Taste Receptors and Genes Encoding Same».

The new patent contains broad claims covering the human T1R2 taste receptor, which responds to the taste of both natural and synthetic sweet compounds. The patent extends the intellectual property protection provided by Senomyx´s previously issued U.S. Patent No. 6.955.887, «Use of T1R Hetero-Oligomeric Taste Receptor to Screen for Compounds that Modulate Taste Signaling» and U.S. Patent No. 7.223.551, «T1R3 Receptor Binding Assays For Identification of Taste Modulatory Compounds», which have broad-based claims that cover novel techniques for using the human sweet taste receptor as the basis for assay systems that are more efficient than traditional flavour discovery procedures (full text).